While the fall film festivals are often viewed as the provenance of a massive wave of Oscar contenders and would-be award winners, the weeks-long stretch of Venice, Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF also often provide something arguably more valuable: bonafide breakout films and talents that foreshadow still more good work to come. The coming wave, the next big thing, if you will. And you can get on board right now.
Ahead, allow us to introduce (and, in a few cases, reintroduce) the most impressive breakout performers of this year’s fall film festival season. Oscar contenders, scene-stealers, long-known talents doing something new, budding multi-hyphenates, and the kind of instant movie stars Hollywood desperately needs, these are the seven performers we cannot wait to see more of.
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For now? Their big breakouts should suffice quite nicely.
Mathilde Arcel (“Woman Unknown”)
Woman unknown indeed. Beyond a handful of Danish drama TV credits that earned her notices at home, Mathilde Arcel arrived at the Venice Film Festival this year as a true discovery. And she went on to win the Venice Film Festival’s Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her layered performance as a nanny hiding a stigmatic secret in postwar Copenhagen.
May el-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown” also scored the Venice Golden Lion in a rare double win out of the Italian festival, and this year from Maggie Gyllenhaal’s jury. Arcel’s performance is mesmerizingly shape-shifting at all times, as she navigates a social climb in soon marrying her now-widowed employer. He’s a garment factory owner and advocate for Danish resistance following the Nazi occupation, where vigilante citizens target anyone, especially women, who may have had loyalties to Germany. Marie’s (Arcel) secret is much more intimate and personal, and ultimately explosive, than inconspicuous Nazi collusion. Arcel is masterful in a character study whose protagonist is often unreadable and elusive — and whose previously unexposed inner cold streak proves catastrophic to her community. —RL
Rosalind Eleazar (“Misty Green”)
The “Slow Horses” star is not dealt an easy hand by writer/director Chris Rock as the title character in his new Hollywood satire about a washed-up Emmy-winning actress looking for her second act. Though she plays opposite several Oscar nominees — like Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick, and even Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya — Eleazar is still able to command the audience’s attention, making magic, especially when she opens her mouth to sing. One could describe the film as a tragicomedy, especially when it hooks the viewer in enough to consider shouting at the screen for Misty to make a better choice. The job even gets meta, with the British star cracking a joke about which nationalities are cast in best roles Hollywood has to offer Black talent. Even if it’s unclear whether Misty will be fine, in playing her in such profound ways, Eleazar ensures we will be seeing much more from her on the screen. —MJ
Skyler Gisondo (“Primetime”)
As bizarre and creepy as Robert Pattinson is in Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime” — based on the controversial early aughts series “To Catch a Predator” and its host Chris Hansen, who tries to lure child predators into his TV maw — his costar Skyler Gisondo (the “Air Bud” franchise, “Licorice Pizza,” “Booksmart,” “Vacation,” “The Righteous Gemstones,” “Superman”) as young-looking predator lure Dan Plum, keeps us tuned to his humanity and offers the long-time actor the juiciest role of his adult career. His freckled, friendly face draws us in and keeps us engaged with each “Dateline” episode the aspiring actor films. Sometimes, he’s scared to death. Sometimes? He relishes the “act.” Next up: more Jimmy Olsen in “Man of Tomorrow” and “The People v. Gorilla Grodd,” plus the comedy sequel “Focker-in-Law.” —AT
Caleb Hearon (“Trash Mountain”)
Beloved internet comedy star Caleb Hearon is disarmingly funny and wonderfully observational in his comedy, and he uses those same skills and charms to offer up an achingly honest turn as leading man in Kris Rey’s “Trash Mountain.” Hearon also co-wrote the film (alongside Ruby Caster), which is loosely based on his own life, which adds a level of pathos and passion that shines through.
Hearon’s natural affability is well-suited for the film, which follows his Gavin as he heads home to rural Missouri after the death of his father. It helps balance broad comedy (Jacki Weaver as Gavin’s grandmother is a hoot and a half), hilariously relatable sequences about hellish homecoming (a run-in with an old classmate while shopping is funny on its own and perfect within the film), and the emotional essentials of his relationship with his sister Abi (Zooey Deschanel), which become the heart of the film. It’s a double-whammy for Hearon, who has the chops to lead and write a winning feature. —KE
Anthony Ippolito (“I Play Rocky”)
Actor Anthony Ippolito takes on the role of Sylvester Stallone in his earliest days with an almost uncanny level of impersonation in Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” — most people are probably going to get hung up on his version of Stallone’s signature voice, but I’ve never seen anyone make their cheekbones look like Sly’s unexpectedly sunken ones — what feels most real about the film exists because he’s so fully committed to the bit.
And it’s very much to the breakout star’s credit that it doesn’t feel like a bit. While the film’s script doesn’t get much further than “this dude just really loved acting,” Ippolito gets pretty soulful here. His Sly (or, as we first meet him during a run of demeaning auditions, “Mike”) is a striver who would likely never call himself “ambitious.” Self-taught, self-educated, and self-aware to a fault, Sly knows he’s not the ideal Hollywood star, but he’s hellbent on showing the world what he’s got. Ippolito? We’re guessing he’s going to have an easier run of it. —KE
Eldar Isgandarov (“Club Kid” and “The Debut”)
It’s tough to imagine a more demanding role than “scene-stealer” in films like Jordan Firstman’s “Club Kid” and Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut,” not only two of the best films of the year, but two features absolutely bursting with insane star power. And yet, in both features, the Azerbaijan rising star Eldar Isgandarov does just that, walking off with some of the funniest bits, the most outrageous expressions, the most unforgettable line readings.
In Firstman’s film, Isgandarov is cast as a louche, couch-crashing hanger-on that the star and filmmaker just can’t shake, until Firstman’s Peter comes up with an ingenious idea to fob the “aspiring queer philosopher” off on a neighbor. You’ll never guess what happens next, and much of that is due to Isgandarov’s powder keg charism and deadpan line readings. In “The Debut,” he’s a touch sweeter, there cast as an eager beaver community theater assistant, who gamely takes on even the most insane of asks, like procuring mochas “without milk.” Over the course of just two roles, he proves his prodigious comedic range. Starring role soon? —KE
Jeon Do-yeon (“Possible Love”)
Netflix is planning an Oscar push for Lee Chang-dong’s “Possible Love,” the Korean Oscar entry, as well as Jeon Do-yeon for Best Actress. She plays Mi-ok, a mask factory worker married to a recently re-employed factory worker (Sul Kyung-gu), a heavy drinker who still seethes with anger after a factory strike that was broken by management, who beat him up and fired him. The couple agree to be the subjects of a documentary about that worker’s strike by wealthy filmmaker Ye-ji (“Parasite” actress Cho Yeo-jeong), who invites them to visit their well-appointed vacation beach home for the weekend, where Mi-ok develops a crush on Ye-ji’s hunk husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung).
Lee premiered his first film since 2018’s Cannes entry “Burning” at Venice and instantly received the best reviews of the competition. Many critics singled out Jeon, the heart of the film, whose delicate face transmits a range of emotions as she observes her struggling husband and the strange behavior of the upper classes. In a pivotal moment, Mi-ok, fully nude, uses “the whole entirety of her body” in protest, she told IndieWire. —AT
Ruth Madeley (“Being Heumann”)
Anyone even remotely familiar with the life and works of disability activist Judy Heumann knows what an indelible presence she was. “Being Heumann” star Ruth Madeley captures the real Judy Heumann’s energy beautifully; she’s funny and flinty and spiky and smarter than anyone else around her and totally driven by her sense of justice and equality. But that’s not always enough, a lesson that Sian Heder’s film is not shy about. Fighting for what’s right involves just that, fighting. Sometimes, that even means fighting your own instincts.
Madeley, however, never hits a false note. She’s the hero of the story — the film is, after all, a biopic about Judy’s early years — but she’s also someone who needs to learn what it really means to be a hero. The British Madeley is astonishing at every turn, capturing passion and pain with great humor, the kind of performance you can’t take your eyes off of. —KE